


the center holds

by Gretahs



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Multi, originally posted as a tumblr prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-09-01 11:37:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8623117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gretahs/pseuds/Gretahs
Summary: Rey is still figuring out what she likes and what she doesn’t like, but she knows that she likes these moments the best.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this was originally posted as a prompt on tumblr, but i'm putting it here because i kinda like it and my tumblr ate itself in the early hours of this morning. written in the same verse as [this](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5483918) and [this](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5535449)

Rey is still figuring out what she likes and what she doesn’t like, but she knows that she likes these moments the best.

They used to alternate bunks; from Finn’s, to hers, before finally settling on Poe’s, the one that was the most lived in, and the most comfortable. The bed is small, but through trial and error they’ve figured out the appropriate formations for all of them to somehow sleep side by side, without anyone dangling precariously off the edge. Often, Rey will sit with Luke under the stars, waiting for the Force to seep beneath her skin and move through her body like a thousand fireflies. That’s when she feels _everything_ , from General Organa pacing with Commander Statura in the meeting room, to a group of pilots quietly inspecting the Falcon from a distance out of Chewie’s hearing. She can feel Finn and Poe, wound up together so tight she can barely tell them apart, and something within her swells.

All of this is new, from both the comfortable loneliness she had become accustomed to on Jakku and the idea that she could be something more, something better than she had ever dreamed, is so alien and foreign that after these sessions, when she returns to the bunk, she has to lie between them, saber clenched tightly in one hand and the sheets fisted in the other.

She is told, by Luke, that the Jedi of old did not practise attachments or absolutes, but that in his own experience, the denial of one’s emotions and feelings for others only lends oneself to the Dark Side. Rey is new to this, and while she could probably rebuild the Falcon bigger and better from the inside out, the idea of this power of the universe is still unknown. What she knows is what it sounds like when three people breathe together, and how the galaxy goes silent and blurs into stillness when she enters hyperspace, and the color of Finn’s eyes when he smiles, and the shape of Poe’s mouth.

They are not absolutes, but they are the truths of Rey’s universe.

When she gets back, later this time than others, she finds Finn awake. On top of him, Poe is sprawled on his stomach, legs buried in the blanket, face pressed into the pillow. Only one light is on, and Finn looks up and smiles when he sees her. Same as her, he looks different now, more controlled. More sure of himself, of who he is in this new collective, than he was as 2187. More of a Finn than an FN.

“How was it?” He asks her quietly, putting down the holo he’s holding and tugging Poe over to make room. Poe moves with a sigh, still asleep, until his back is pressed against Finn’s side. His hair is curling around his face, and it makes him look younger.

“Good,” Rey says, beginning to strip. This act, to her, is almost non-sexual, and she knows that Finn did not grow with the same taboo of nudity that Poe did, so this has always been a non-issue with them. “It was… yeah. Luke talked about the stars, and Tatooine.”

“Bet you loved that, the desert,” Finn tells her teasingly, as she moves Poe’s arm aside and slips into bed. “You sure you two aren’t related?”

She shoves him playfully. In the dim light, his eyes are wide and dark, and he beams at her. It sends a pleasant chill down her spine, and she leans over to kiss him.

“Funny,” she says. “ _Hilarious_. Really, if Jakku had stew like they have here, I might’ve never left.”

Finn gives her a look, but at the same time is quietly troubled. Rey calls it his “We Didn’t Joke in the First Order So Are You Really Joking?” face. It makes her heart hurt a bit, so she kisses him again.

“I’m joking,” she tells him, and his face subtly relaxes. “But let me tell you, if they had the stew _and_ the private refreshers-”

He laughs, then slaps a hand over his mouth, looking down at Poe. “I know, right? Imagine, your entire squad in the public fresher. No privacy and no towels. “He sighs dreamily. “I’d only heard about private freshers in stories and songs.”

“No water on Jakku to be wasted. We had sonic showers, mostly.”

He looks slightly disgusted.

“At least it was a sonic shower of one,” she says teasingly, “now don’t lie, is that really why you left?”

The Kylo Ren/First Order elephant in the room is a spot of inky blackness that they can only approach with light tones and the occasional pun. Anything else draws out the thick scar along Finn’s spine, and the nightmares that still shake Poe awake, hands grasping to fight an intangible foe. On really rare nights, Rey loses control, and Luke is the only one who can snap her out of it.

But Finn smiles, and says: “I chose my own path.” And then he leans in conspiratorially. “And I took one look at Poe and _knew_ he was using a private fresher.” Then he taps the side of his nose.

She laughs, letting the warmth sink in. “I guess we all got what we wanted: you got a fresher and I got my stew.”

“And a Jedi master.”

“Hmm, that could be improved on. Like, say, a Jedi master _made_ of stew…”

“Whassat?” She hears, Poe’s voice thick with sleep. “Rey?”

“Go back to sleep,” Finn tells him, pushing him back down onto the bed when he starts to rise. “Our girl here’s just trying to be a lot funnier than she actually is.”

Poe opens one brown eye, peering up at her, before winking. “She’s real funny,” he says past a yawn. “I think she’s _great.”_

“Go to sleep, Dameron,” Finn says, but his tone is affectionate, and he’s smiling.

“You too,” Poe says, and then something else, which is lost into the fabric of the pillow.

The world always feels different once she’s in here, as though she’s off balance unless she’s with them, like they center her in this galaxy she’s only just beginning to discover. So when Finn turns off the lights, and reaches over to take her hand, around them, the Force _sings._

**Author's Note:**

> i have a new tumblr [here!](http://gretahs.tumblr.com/) :DDDD


End file.
